PLAID Cymru was urged yesterday to rule out striking a Tory pact to win control of the Welsh Assembly.

Left-wingers in Plaid want the party's national council to reject any proposals to commit to a coalition, including Conservatives, after the 2007 Assembly elections.

The council will meet tomorrow to assess Plaid's poor general election result - losing its Ceredigion seat and failing to regain Anglesey at Westminster.

Plaid deputy leader Jill Evans, writing on the left-wing Triban Coch website, said the weekend debate was "crucial to the future success of this party".

"While no-one can or should rule out the possibility of a coalition at some point in the future, we in Triban Coch are opposed to any coalition with the Tories," she said..

"What direction the party takes now must be debated fully and honestly by the members.

"The result must be decisive before it becomes divisive."

A group of prominent Plaid members - including former president Dafydd Wigley and ex-policy director Cynog Dafis - said they should be prepared to work with other parties in a coalition in the Assembly since proportional representation works to deny all parties a majority acting on their own.

Unless Plaid faced this reality the group, called Dewis (meaning choice), said the people of Wales would be condemned to "perpetual one-party domination" by Labour..

But Carmarthen East and Dinefwr MP Adam Price argued yesterday while coalition might "break the logjam in Welsh politics", a deal with the Conservatives was unacceptable.

"The lurch to the right of the Tories under Howard and their adoption of an abolitionist stance on the Assembly surely places them yet again beyond the progressive pale," he said..